Somewhere Between
by Melody Unrequited
Summary: For three years they've been apart. Last he saw, she was happily in love, he was dying by slow degrees and the vampire was smug. Not now. They meet somewhere between the cold food section and aisle three. Awkwardness ensues.
1. To try and remember

Part One

_To Try and Remember_

_---_

_"I'd like to think I'm the mess you'd wear with pride."_

_-Band of Horses, "I'd Like to Think."_

_---_

She's somewhere between the cold food section and aisle three, her permanently cocked hip jutted to fit the warmth of the lovely little child with rosy cheeks and a sweet disposition.

"Apple or peas?" she asks, presenting the jars for the two year old's judgement.

The peas earn a crinkling of her button nose and the young woman smiles in agreement.

"I'm with you on that one."

They make their way to the checkout, people not so subtly eyeballing the young girl with the baby. One dimpled smile, utterly reminiscent of her grandfather, and the judging glances are transformed into coos of appreciation, attention that the wide eyed baby accepts delightedly.

Bella scoops the baby into her arms, a small warm cheek burrowing eagerly into the crook of her neck, seeking the comfort of skin and letting out a content sigh. The check out girl, gum snapping like some terrible cliché, is still packing the bags, her laborious movements almost lulling Bella to sleep.

Eyelashes flutter against her neck, and Bella smiles at their special game. Butterfly kisses. She turns her head and sends one back, gleeful chortles her reward. This game continues for three more flutters until Bella feels Amelia's smile against her neck. The check out girl questions her form of payment and when Bella returns her attention to Amelia on her shoulder she's surprised to feel her duck shyly behind her hair. Another giggle. Bella leans Amelia back, only to find her eyes avidly fixed upon something behind Bella's shoulder. She giggles again, lurching forwards and peering from the security of Bella's hair.

"What are you laughing at, sweet girl?" Bella asks, turning her head to discover the object of Amelia's adoration.

Only to find her own.

With a rosy complexion to rival that of her baby's, Bella stares at her long lost friend, his open mouth a comic mirror to her own.

"Jacob?"

His jaw is still unhinged and once upon a time she would have tapped it shut and wiped away some false drool. But not now.

Instead, she busies herself by readjusting Amelia's sleeves and smoothing her hair back.

"I thought you were in Alaska?" his voice is as unhinged as his jaw.

"Yeah, well. Things change. I changed," she offers weakly, a strange prickling in her fingertips as her heart palpitates an uneven tattoo. Only then realizing her choice of words have underlying connotations – underlying connotations that began this whole sticky mess.

"I mean. I'm not changed, as in fangs changed, I mean obviously. I have a baby, so…" her words trail off.

She hasn't blushed in so long. It's making her lightheaded.

"You're married?" he asks and she smiles ruefully at him.

"No, Jacob. I'm not married."

"Oh."

"And I'm not getting married."

"Oh."

She's never heard him so stuck for words. That was her job.

He's still beautiful and she feels dowdy, for the first time, in her jeans and t-shirt. She wonders if he notices.

There's an awkward, static silence. More awkward than when she walked in on Renee and Phil at age 10, even more awkward than Charlie's attempt at a sex talk and the resulting silence when she blurted out that she was pregnant.

Bella smoothes Amelia's corn-silk curls and thinks of Thomas. He was a nice boy - too nice - with an unassumingly lovely face, one you could trust. He wasn't anything remarkable – not a perfect, dark beauty with angles painted by angels to create a masterpiece to rival the Sistine divines or wild undiscovered plains, all burnished skin, ebony hair and a smile that could go on for days. No, he was human, ordinary and just lovely with the crooked angle of his nose and eyes set too wide. And he came to Bella, providing a distraction and escape from eternity, treaties and things that went bump in the night. And Bella found that love didn't have to be all declarations and sweet nothings and fire and ice and not being able to exist without one another. It didn't have to be complicated. It could just be comfortable. Thomas was normal. He was nervous and overwhelmed when she told him she was pregnant, but he stayed and he was happy and proud when Amelia was born. But Bella was restless, not wanting to acknowledge the understanding she now felt for her mother's actions in fleeing Forks. She understood them only too well now. Until one day she packed her bags, said goodbye to an understanding Thomas and took Amelia home to see Charlie. Charlie opened the door with a watery smile and Bella fell into his arms, only then letting herself cry. She was home.

But she realizes now that home was never complete without the boy – man, now- that now stands awkwardly in front of her.

She finds herself staring at him: The scar on his left eyebrow made by the trajectory of a flying wrench (he got Paul mad.) and the gentle stretch of his smile (it still went for days and days) and the strong capability of his hands, all calluses and blunt nails. She remembers holding that hand. She remembers it holding hers back.

He clears his throat and jams said hands into his pockets, rocking slightly and whistling through his teeth.

Amelia squirms impatiently in Bella's arms, still eyeing Jacob with something akin to awe.

Jacob seems to be debating something, his eyes narrowed into the same thinned line as his lips. He breathes out abruptly,

"Can I hold her?"

Bella stares at him momentarily then stutters, "Uh. Yeah, sure."

She awkwardly juggles her purse back over one shoulder before passing Amelia quietly to Jacob. He seems to be regarding her as he would a difficult maths problem: with befuddlement and total disbelief.

Amelia is still all wide eyes and reaches up to the curtain of Jake's long, ebony hair to push it from his face. She repeats the motion a few times, watching intently as it cascades over her tiny hand. Bella watches Jake's face the entire time, hardly breathing, and sees him mirror the awe of Amelia.

"Mama?" she calls suddenly.

"Yes, baby?" Bella replies, reaching over to take her from Jake. Amelia pushes her hands away and burrows into Jake's chest with a content smile.

"Pretty," she sighs, her hands still toying with the sensation of his long hair.

"What's with you Swan women and emasculating me, huh? 'Sort of beautiful' and 'pretty…" he grumbles half heartedly, the corner of his mouth betraying his false emotion.

Bella giggles at him and suddenly Jake's grinning back at her as if she's seventeen again and this is just another day, just another smile, as if this smile wasn't the first she'd seen from him in three years. She closes her eyes and basks in it slightly. She feels warm.

"She looks just like you, 'ya know?"

Her eyes flicker open and Jake's looking at her again, like she always disregarded and always secretly wanted. Like he never stopped.

The moment breaks as Amelia tugs impatiently on Jake's hair.

"Amelia, that's not nice. Say sorry to Jacob, please."

Amelia pouts slightly, pushes his hair back again.

"Sorry, Jake."

"That's alright, kiddo. I've had worse. Your mum punched me once," he recounts with an impish grin.

Bella rolls her eyes dramatically, "well, you did deserve it."

"Sure, sure."

There's a beat of silence that stretches between them, that permeates their very beings and forces them to acknowledge why there is silence in the first place.

She loved him and she left him.

"Well, I should probably go now?" she states as if a question, reluctantly.

"Oh. Yeah, yeah of course. Sorry," he says hastily.

He smiles at her and her eyes well up a little as he makes no move to hug her. All she wants is for him to hold her again. To tell her this can be fixed.

But he doesn't.

Bella can feel the pressure behind her eyes so she quickly walks with her trolley towards the exit. In the safety of the carpark she allows her sadness to overwhelm her.

Amelia touches her face with a concerned look and Bella smiles through her tears.

"Sorry, baby. Mama's just feeling a bit sad."

She's wiping her face roughly with her sleeve when two gentle arms wrap around her from behind. And she sobs one loud, grating sob as he whispers,

"Oh, Bells. I've missed you like crazy."

And just like that, she sees her entire future play before her as the sort of beautiful man that holds her heart gives her a smile.

And she's home.


	2. To Leave with a Kiss

Part Two

_To Leave With a Kiss…_

_---_

"But I knew that you were a truth I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all"

-Death Cab For Cutie, 'What Sarah Said'

---

His tall frame is squeezed hazardly onto one of her small dining chairs as she checks on the dinner. She pauses a moment to listen to Amelia's quiet chatter as she brandishes indistinguishable blobs of crayon and pencil at Jacob. _Mama. Cat. Tree. Dog. Jay-cob. _Bella smiles a ridiculously large and secret smile to herself as she hears Jacob's exclamations of _Wow _and _you really did this all by yourself?_

Amelia pouts as Bella swiftly clears away the paper and crayons.

"Grand-pop is coming to pick you up in a minute. Don't you want to save some paper to draw for him later?"

Amelia acquiesces with a sigh (Jacob laughs) and she turns to her food eagerly.

Four serves of pasta later (three of them Jacob's) and Bella is telling Charlie the usual _call me if there are any issues _and _don't let her sweet-charm you into letting her stay up and eat icecream. _With a kiss on the nose and an elaborate wave and holler at Jacob, Amelia is happily being carried to Charlie's cruiser outside.

Bella closes the door slowly and suddenly it's very quiet and all she can think about is _we're alone _and all she can hear are her unsteady breaths and a slight swell of blood rushing through her ears.

She takes a hopeful steadying breath (it doesn't work, especially when she sneaks a glance around the kitchen door at his silent form) and begins to clear the table. Her hands tremble as she reaches for his plate and the cutlery is sent clashing to the tabletop.

"Oh, I'm so sor-" her sentence ends in a caught, breathy exclamation as a warm hand steadies hers.

"Hey, Bells. Settle, honey. It's only me."

And he's so the same and yet so different and it's breaking her heart to hear the love and concern that she thought she must have lost all those years ago. But he's still there and he's still watching her with those midnight eyes that know everything and see everything about her.

"Why don't you sit with me a while? Hey? Just you and me. The way it used to be."

His hands slide under hers and his fingers link themselves between her own before he leads her gently to the couch.

"I would offer you warm soda, but I think all I have is apple juice and milk," she says quietly.

Jake chuckles lowly and says, "Never mind. Next time. Besides, all I really want is to talk to you."

They're sitting now and something on her face must be telling him her need for space. She feels like some hard truths and memories are going to be trudged up and she can't bear for his touch to be associated with them.

It's silent for a few breaths and then he speaks.

"What happened, Bella?"

But even she doesn't really know the answer to that question.

---

She's still not certain what the breaking point was or when between Edward and herself. Maybe it was him begging her to delay the change just for a week, that turned into a month, that turned into six. Or maybe it was when he silently watched her, with a guilt and sadness so profound it took his pointless breath away, smiling wistfully at the young children they passed on the playground. Or maybe, even earlier, it was her kissing, breathing, speaking Jacob or that fateful day in the woods when he left and she saw just how consumed she was and how irrevocably that kind of power – love – could ruin someone. She didn't know, but she did know that it lead to a stale, dark distance that stretched across miles. A distance she felt, late at night, feigning sleep despite him holding her so close she would have felt his heart beat should it have beat at all.

And so that distance became real.

This time he left her with truths, painfully bittersweet kisses and the brutal knowledge of _I'll never love anyone but you. For eternity. _And then he was gone.

She cried, as she hadn't been able to the first time around. She cried for their love and the inevitability and impossibility of it. She cried for the family (only hers in her own heart) – Alice, Esme, Carlisle, Emmett, Jasper, Rosalie.

It was the memory of Rosalie that propelled her forwards after months of grieving, mourning, his absence. It was Rosalie's desperate longing for life, for humanity, that spurred Bella's attempt at living again. Ironic that the most alive she'd felt (besides with the dark eyed boy that roamed the forests) was amongst the living dead. Without them she struggled to feel much of anything beside an all consuming grief that compensated for the loss of her all consuming love.

But life moved on, even if she never really would.

---


	3. Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

Part Three

_Parting is such sweet sorrow_

_---_

"_Cause when you showed me myself, you know, I became someone else_

_But I was caught in between all I wish for and all I need."_

Joseph Arthur, 'In the Sun'.

---

The night after Amelia was born, Bella woke in the hospital, her body alert. An anxious glance at Amelia's sleeping cherub's face relieved her so that she fell back into her pillow. She traced Amelia's features distantly with her fingers upon the air and sought the hazy confusion of sleep. Then, in the twilight between awareness and sleep, she saw him. The moonlight angles of his face caused her breath to catch on his name, etched shadows and tortured sable eyes betrayed his emotion – tenderness and love warring with sorrow and regret. She couldn't look away and she couldn't not look away. His pain hurt her. It always would.

He looked at her then, calmly, with the wild hysteria of despair buried in his black gaze.

"She has your eyelashes. And your mouth," he said lowly, his voice blending perfectly into the inky darkness, "She's so beautiful, Bella."

"Stay with me," she begged.

He stared at her one long, suspended, moment and shook his head mournfully.

"Please," she sobbed. "Please. Why can you never stay for me?"

He appeared wraithlike by her bedside and cradled her face gently in his palms. Her eyelids fluttered closed from the ecstasy of his nearness. Cold lips brushed her forehead, eyelids, cheeks and finally her mouth with a weeping tenderness, like velveteen rose petals. She breathed him in and he let her go.

"Why, Edward?"

"Because I love you too much to hurt you anymore."

And that was the last time she ever saw him.

---

She didn't just want to do anything for her darling babe, she needed to do _everything. _It wasn't choice it was instinct. A divine, primal instinct to nourish and protect and love. She remembers her earlier fears during her pregnancy when she would wake and think _what if she doesn't love me? _Bella had always been slightly nervous around children, with their tiny fingers and gap-toothed smiles. Even more so by the tiny infants with rumpled foreheads and buttercup skin, their tiny heads lolling upon weak necks. She could never bear to hold babies, her fear rendering her into a panic when their pleasant weight rested in her arms.

But Amelia was different. Her own baby breathed life and tenderly coaxed away Bella's fear with each tiny sigh and fluttering heart beat. She was perfect. Still, in dark moments, her fear would creep back with a flushed heat in Amelia's cheeks or when she stayed up all night on the phone to Renée hysterically hushing and rocking Amelia when her new teeth sprung forth. But she wouldn't trade it for anything. And she could never count Amelia as a regret, despite the circumstances that rendered her conception a mistake. No, Amelia was Bella's proudest achievement.

And she lived for her.

---

And live she did. Looking at Jacob's smile that day just made her want it all the more.

---

Jacob's looking at her now, almost business like, assessing, as if he expects her to disappear like she did the first time. To fade away. But she's different now, more understanding, a little less insecure. She knows Edward left for her, for the humanity he treasured and she abandoned and that the ache – now rescinded to a faint murmur in her heart, like a background static- would never wane. She didn't want it to, because it meant she still had a part of him here with her and proof that once in a small rainy town, an ordinary girl experienced something - someone - extraordinary. Edward would always be with her in some small way.

She smiles at the other extra-ordinary she experienced. It was Jacob's ordinariness that she loved, treasured, as she never did her own. He smiles back hesitantly and she easily takes his hand in hers.

"He's a good man. I was too angry, too jealous and immature, before to acknowledge it. I saw it, Bells, believe me. I just couldn't – wouldn't – accept it."

He looks thoughtfully at their joined hands, presses hers between his two, large palms and drops them with a sigh.

"I really did love you, Bells. You were never _just _a girl to me. It was real. So real that it hurt. And I'm sorry because it hurt you, too."

He looks at her then, and she wants to say _I know. I know it was real. It was real for me, too, I just didn't want to see it. There was just something more blinding, more hypnotic at the time. I didn't see you and I'm sorry._

Instead, "I was so blind, Jake. It was never you. The fault was all mine."

---

She had once scorned him and accused him of a fleeting crush, of loving her like a child. It was all too easy to disregard her own feelings by casting away his as a schoolboy's fancy. But she was wrong. She knows now that she'd been the child, not him. All the dancing and teasing and denying and pushing. Yes, she'd loved him like she child she'd accused him of. Like a little girl. Like the weak, helpless mortal that Edward loved and couldn't see past. She'd trapped herself well in her human weakness. It was all too easy to simply allow life, love, everything, to sweep her along. To drown her. Maybe that's why she could never accept Jacob's declarations and pushing and pleading. Maybe it was too hard and made her realise that life was there to be seized and experienced. Made her realise that she was slowly fading away into the perfect shadow she'd always wanted to become. A creature of the night. Of fables and fairytales. A fleeting fantasy and illusion that flitted somewhere between peoples' dreams and nightmares.

She remembers someone once saying - or maybe it was a song? – that there is a fine line between love and hate. The same could be said for passion and rage. She was so angry all the time, so furious with Jacob's insistence and passion and _caring. _She never asked him to care, wishes he didn't, and pushed him so far only to have him crawling back to her with fervour and his damn generosity. _Take my heart, take my sanity, take me! _And she wanted to. She hated him for it. Hated his offering. Hated his trust. Because she definitely did not deserve it.

But she wanted it now and he was so close, she could just–

She slides her thumb from the bow of his mouth and looks away.

She could do a lot of things, and most of them would break his heart. And more so, her own.


	4. The Days Lost Between Broken Hearts

Part Four

_The Days Lost Between Broken Hearts and Delusion_

_---_

"_And I don't need the fallout of all the past that's in between us."_

Goo Goo Dolls_, 'Here Is Gone.'_

_---_

"Don't pull away from me, Bells. Please. I don't think I can survive you turning me away again."

Bella walks back into the kitchen and he follows closely. She leans heavily against the sink, bracing her elbows and her heart.

"I don't think I can survive hurting you again. It killed me, Jacob."

Her head drops in defeat and she tenses when a warm hand rests against her neck.

"Hey now. I was the idiot who couldn't take no for an answer. I wanted it, Bella. I wanted _you. _And you hurting me was second to my love for you. Second to keeping you from killing yourself for him."

She flinches away from his gentle hand. _He still doesn't get it! _

"Get angry at me! Why can't you see? _I _ruined you, Jake! I was selfish and manipulative and shallow and you _never _blame me!"

He just looks at her calmly, sadly, his eyes speaking of a knowledge way past their twenty years.

"I'm not going to blame you, Bella. I can't. I won't. Because it wasn't your fault. We all played a part."

She grates out a groan of frustration and shoves him fruitlessly. He just stands there with that damn look of patience and love.

"I'm no good for you, Jake! I'm damaged goods. Even worse for you than I was the first time. Why can't you see that? Why can't you see you deserve someone so much better?"

He steps forwards, presses his cheek to hers. She can't breathe. She can't move.

"Because whenever I close my eyes I see your face."

---

Edward was all she saw, for months after he left. More vivid, tangible, than the voice that haunted her during the dark days. And this time Jacob wasn't there to shed light on the shadows, to dispel the gloom. Just her. Sometimes she'd be sitting still, doing the dishes or looking in the mirror and an image of another face – laughing, smiling, begging, yelling -- this time russet toned with the midnight eyes, would appear and she'd force it quietly to the side, tuck it into a lost corner of her mind and refuse to think of him. She couldn't. She only had enough soul left to mourn one loss. It just hurt too much to grieve his absence as well. And Alice. She remembers little Alice's arms refusing to let her go, her words mirroring their actions. Her disbelief and sorrow in saying _But I saw it…it had all been so clear…_ So Bella pushed her gently away and turned her back. She couldn't think of what could have been.

The rest of the goodbyes are shrouded in the pain of her grief, only punctuated by small points of light, like Esme's trembling hand smoothing her hair back for the last time and Carlisle's sorrowful embrace_._ There was Emmett's heartbreakingly sombre bear hug – it lacked its usual exuberance – and Jasper's stricken apologies that she couldn't bear to hear. And then there was Rosalie. And she was smiling a sad but radiant smile. The first and last that Bella would ever receive. She stepped towards Bella, as terrifying and intimidating in her beauty as ever, and said _thank you, _her hand reaching out hesitantly before withdrawing and declaring _live, Bella. _

And years passed, until one day Bella woke up screaming and realised she couldn't picture their faces at all.

The only face that remained was his.

And so she returned.

---

Charlie was resigned and it took a home cooked meal, three beers and the union of a baseball match to sway his silence.

"Bells, I just don't think it's a good idea right now. Give it some time, some space. I think the pain is still too fresh, 'ya know?"

She nodded without agreeing, stared at the flickering screen of the television.

"I know, but I just-" she broke off, searching for words to explain her overwhelming longing and need to see him. She bit her already chapped lip and looked at Charlie in defeat.

Charlie smoothed a hand roughly across his jaw, smoothing his moustache before tugging on his hair and sighing.

"Ah, hun, I know you miss him. But you left, not him," he pauses, oblivious to Bella's flinch and hesitates as if unsure how to continue. "It wasn't pretty, Bells."

"I don't know what you-"

"I mean Jake was pretty torn up. Billy was real worried for a while. He just seemed to go off the rails. Didn't even hear from him for nearly a year. He was somewhere down south working on a property."

"Is he home now?"

Charlie gives her a warning glance, "Yeah, but, Bells-"

"I just want to talk to him."

"Fine. But don't say I didn't warn you not to go trudging up bad feelings."

_Bad feelings, indeed._

---

Turns out Charlie's attempts at dissuading her from visiting Jake were unnecessary. The moment Billy Black's frank gaze landed on her she almost turned tail and left. He didn't even say anything, just sat there with his arms crossed and his eyes wary and assessing. After two minutes of sufficiently awkward silence, Bella cleared her throat.

"Uh, hi Billy. I was, well, I was wondering if I could maybe – you know, uh-"

"Talk to Jake?" he offered bluntly.

She let out the heavy breath she'd been holding, "yeah. I mean, if he wants to."

Billy sighed in resignation -eerily similar to Charlie and Bella wondered if all older men had the ability to express their disapproval so succinctly – and mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like _What he wants and what is good for him are two very different things, _before signalling her to wait.

He disappeared into the house again. She heard Billy distantly calling his name and her heart leapt into her mouth. A moment later he reappeared.

"He's with Sam. He won't be back until nightfall."

Disappointment surged through her and she smiled weakly at Billy.

"No worries. I guess I'll see him another time."

There was no need for Billy to voice his thoughts, his face said it all: _Please don't break his heart this time._

She turned away, because she wasn't sure she could make that promise.

---

Jake chuckled, shaking his head.

"Damn old men, meddling where they aren't wanted."

At Bella's perplexed glance, he continues, "Billy never told me you came."

"Oh, well. I understand. I don't blame him."

He smirks wryly at her, "of course you don't."

In a moment of rare candidness she pokes her tongue out at him and he laughs.

"Amelia teach you that?"

"No. In fact I think it was a pretty natural reaction to you. I mean you must get all kinds of gestures thrown at you what with your freakish size and enormous head."

She expects him to retort with an exaggerated puppy dog face, maybe clutch his heart a little, but instead he smirks and raises his eyebrow.

In a lowered voice, laced with innuendo he says, "Oh, I get plenty of _gestures _thrown at me because of my _freakish size, _don't you worry about that."

And then the smug bastard winks and stretches his arms above his head and Bella is turning fifty shades of crimson, her eyes blinking rapidly and her heart palpitating and all that's coherent is _I think I'm in trouble._


	5. Waking Up in the Breakdown

Part Five

_Waking Up in the Breakdown_

_---_

"_It's been minutes, it's been days. It's been all I will remember."_

_- _Snow Patrol, '_Crack the Shutters.'_

---

He's so different, she thinks, watching him move around her small house his fingers brushing against the glass of photo frames and tracing novel spines. There's a confidence, an unconscious grace, which accompanies his every movement. The line of his calf as he turns on the floorboards, the lyric of his fingers as they tap unconsciously against his thigh and the smooth rhythm of his reach for a novel catch her gaze and hold it. She looks away because it's the right thing to do, not because she wants to, and doesn't see Jacob raise his head and stare with muted frustration and knowing determination at the space she just vacated.

He sighs, placing the novel back on the shelf and continuing his perusal of a Bella he still knows, still feels, but didn't witness in development.

Of a Bella he still desperately loves.

---

Everything she does is beautiful, but not everything she does is right. This Jacob knew, had known from the start, and this Bella had taken years to understand. That just because something is beautiful doesn't mean it's right. Like Edward. Like Edward and Bella forever. Jake wishes he could have saved her that truth, that understanding, and he had tried. He had tried so hard that it broke him apart until all that remained was this determination, so close to fury, to keep her from changing. To keep her with him. Love took a backseat because it was her _life, _her _humanity _that she was throwing away and with it his heart. He doesn't remember anything besides an all consuming anger for a year after she left. He had nothing left anymore. At first it was grief, so crushing that he couldn't speak, couldn't breathe without a thought of her, and then grief turned to anger and anger to hate. He wanted to hate her. At times he thought he did hate her, but then he'd remember something – the way she laughed at his corny lines or even just her sipping a warm soda in the garage- and that feeling, that _love _would come pouring back into him like salt on a wound. How he wished he could hate her. It would have been so much less painful. Maybe he could have moved on, dated a few girls, ones with tan skin, blonde hair and flirtatious smiles, gotten heartbreak and broken hearts the normal way. But he couldn't. He tried for a while, but every time he spoke to them, kissed them, slept with them, he was comparing them to dark hair and ivory skin and damn brown eyes that saw everything and acknowledged nothing. He just couldn't do it.

So he wasn't surprised, not really, when she came back to haunt him. And he definitely wasn't surprised at his knowledge that he would never stop loving her.

It was all he knew. All he wanted to know.

Because when it came to Bella Swan he, too, had eyes that saw everything and acknowledged nothing.

---

And he's so close – he's always been _so _close, but never touching – and she can see everything – she's never really _seen _him, but now she can- and she realises she's been fighting the inevitable all along and can't remember the reason or reasons why.

Maybe it's time to say it, to answer what he was calling for and she didn't want to know. And it's like he knows it already, he looks straight through her to the shaky, very real, very scared little girl that still remains within her. And then she kisses him, a quiet, gasping brush of his lips and then more, a hard biting kiss that bruises and hurts but she pushes anyway. And he's slowing her, taking her punishment, her pain, swallowing it just as he always has. And it makes her angry. He should be punishing her. She should be bowing under the fire of his rage and hurt, but he's gentle and achingly sweet, so she bites him – hard. He wrenches away from her mouth, and his breath and voice are breaking,

"I won't hate you, Bella. I never could and I never will."

So she forces herself on him again and takes and takes and takes – it's all she knows with him- until she can't anymore. Because she's taken everything.

"I wish you would," she whispers.

"Why? So you can feel less guilty, less responsible?" he says bitterly, choking out a harsh laugh.

"Take me, then. Do what you want."

He shakes his head and goes to move away, so she murmurs a cold taunt to his back.

"Coward."

He turns around then and she almost shrinks back, _almost _regrets her angry words, because he

"Don't call me a coward, Bells. Not when I was the one strong enough to fight for us."

She ducks her head then, shamed by the sharp edge of his words. _But I'm fighting now. _

"What do you want from me?" she asks quietly.

"I don't want anything from you, Bells. I just want you," he says loudly in the silence of the storm between them.

"Then take me," she says boldly, a tremor of disbelief at her audaciousness goes through her.

He steps towards her and he looks like the little boy she knew, before treaties and muscles and anger and her heart's crying for him.

She reaches for his hand and he lets her take it, strokes his large thumb once over the knuckles, and places a palm on her cheek. And it's like everything breathes as he leans towards her, his eyes holding hers as his nose tentatively bumps hers. He barely touches her and she already can't take in enough air. And finally she feels his mouth, broad and warm, achingly tender as if he's kissing her soul. All that sounds are sharp inhales and shaking exhales, the creak of the couch as he shifts over her.

"Not here," she breathes.

Then they're in her room and everything is faster, more and everything is so bright and sharp, she feels like she can barely keep herself together. A brush of his hand against her ribs, the sharp angle of his hips and she can't breathe. And then they're bare and she can't imagine anything more incredible or more terrifying than the feel of his gaze upon her – at last. He's quiet and she almost wants to break the silence because it's too intensely abnormal for them, but peaceful too. She presses up into his hands as they outline her lines and can barely control the shaking of her hands as she pushes the hair from his face and he kisses her wrist.

There's a pressure within her that resonates from her fingertips and pools in her lower abdomen, as if Jacob is taking her higher and higher in altitude. And she's aching with it, those words are screaming to be heard, to be spoken. She opens her mouth to say them, _Jacob, I – _but can't. _I love you. I love you. _She's striving, reaching for that moment where she'll fall over the edge and he's taking her with him with his hushed murmurings and ardent _waited for this so long – perfect – God, I love... _His face, so sincerely peaceful in its joy, brings tears to her eyes as he moves above her. And then it was a furor of hips and breaths and a final kiss that sent her spiralling back down, losing altitude, and her head dizzy with the sensation.

She fell back into him, breathed in his breath once more as he gently brushed her lips. Once, twice. He brushed the words, once, twice, at the tip of her tongue and tucked her gently into his collarbone, closing his eyes with a hum of satisfaction that makes her smile so gently that it feels fragile.

She counts his breaths, watches them settle into a deep rhythm and matches them to her own.

On the brink of sleep she presses her lips to the warm skin over his heart – feels it's reassuring, beloved tempo- and breathes into him the words she could not say, hoping that they would find their way to his dreams and tell him what she could not.

_I love you, Jake. _


	6. When All You Feel is Light

Part Six

_When All You Seem to Feel is Light_

_---_

_I was calling for the answer that you probably shouldn't know… You were calling with your question when all I needed was to know._

The Academy Is…, _'40 Steps'._

_---_

She stretches, a delicious burn in her limbs, a burn she hasn't felt in a long time. She has her eyes closed now, an automatic reaction to the gentle sweep of his hand against her bare back. She opens one eye and peeks at Jake's amused and very satisfied expression.

"Cat that ate the canary much?" she quips.

He simply smirks back at her.

"Or maybe the cat that got the cream?"

She rolls her eyes at him and rests her head against his shoulder.

They're quiet for a moment and she revels in the calm joy of the aftermath. She still can't believe she's naked in a bed with Jacob, her Jacob, after a night of learning and loving and discovering each other again. She doesn't even remember the exact moment that inspired her to impulsively press her lips to his. Maybe it was him grasping her hand as she pointed out the photos on the wall, or maybe it was him saying _I wish I'd been there, _but really it had been building ever since she saw him only days before in the supermarket. Or, if she's honest, ever since the first time she saw the smile that saved her in those dark days.

She ducks her head into his neck, hides behind his hair. _Just like Amelia, _she scolds herself.

"Do you think we could start again, Jake? Just forget everything that happened before and just…live – and love?" she adds shyly.

He smiles adoringly at her bashfulness and then his face smooths into sad, accepting lines.

"No, Bells. I don't think we can."

And it hurts. And she's so embarrassed and, if she's really honest, shocked. _ I thought he loved me? He's supposed to love me. I mean, the way he touched me…_She clears her throat and rolls out of bed, tears of humiliation pricking her eyes as she tries to wrench the sheet around her body. She pauses in front of the mirror and feels the weight of his gaze upon her, so warm – _but not mine - _as she collects her clothes from the floor.

"Oh well. I guess, um, I guess I saw too much into this. I mean, I get it," she stumbles.

"Bells, look at me," he pleads. His voice is so close. So near.

She wipes her face rashly with a hand and stays silent except for a tiny, angry sob. God, she hates crying.

"Bells, _look at me._"

She continues to ignore him and hears him sigh.

Large hands encircle her waist and turn her slowly, as if she were dancing. They sweep her hair back and tilt her face until all she can see is him. He strokes his thumbs over her cheeks- languid, slow burning heat- three times, and then his lips are on hers and she's shocked but she can't help it and suddenly she's pushing back and he's so warm and it feels like she's burning, a hot molten charge running through her body. God, and it's like he loves her. Like the first time and the second and the third. And she wants to keep this feeling but reality hits and all she can hear is _no, Bells. I don't think we can. _It's echoing in her ears now, radiating from her pulse and choking her breath. She pulls back from his mouth violently.

"I'm in love with you, Jake!" she cries breathlessly and she could hit herself for being so pathetic, but he's staring at her again and there's this look, this pure unadulterated gleam, that makes her want to kiss him again. Hard.

"What did you just say?" he murmurs quietly.

She swallows and says it slowly, even though it's breaking her apart

"I'm in love with you."

And he's smiling so huge she can see his molars, until he pulls her gently forwards and kisses her again and again and again.

"Why can't we start again, Jake? Please let's forget all the rest. Let's forget before."

"No, Bells. I wouldn't forget it for the world, because it was all worth it in the end. Look at where we are now."

It hits her and she thinks she understands his earlier words. She has to ask.

"So you do want me?"

And then he says those three words so easily, like breathing, and she's crying.

"Don't you know, Bells? It's always been you."

---

Charlie quirks a knowing eyebrow over Jake's shoulder at Bella as he answers the door. He might feign resignation but Bella can tell from the quirk of his moustache and the restrained relief in his eyes that he's happy.

"MAMA!" Amelia squeals happily, the corners of her mouth coated in a suspicious looking chocolate colour.

Bella simply cocks an eyebrow back at Charlie, taking a clearly excited Amelia back into her arms.

"She coerced me, Bells. You know I can't deny that little face," he says, shrugging his shoulders.

Charlie kisses Amelia goodbye and waves to Jake, calls out something about a Mariners' game at Billy's, and walks out to the cruiser.

Amelia plants ecstatic and chocolaty kisses over Bella's face and Bella laughs and returns them equally fiercely. She takes quick, breathy gasps every few words as she recounts her time with Charlie.

"There were puppies! They're so small, Mama!"

Bella smiles as Amelia peers over her shoulder and squeals, "JAKE!"

"Hey, squirt. Sounds like you had fun with Grand-pop."

Amelia nods enthusiastically, squirming with uncharacteristic impatience in Bella's arms.

"Have you been eating Mexican jumping beans, Amelia?"

She shakes her head exasperatedly which makes Bella laugh harder. She then brushes back Bella's hair and whispers quickly into her ear.

"Can I cuddle Jake?"

She pulls back with a puppy dog look on her face (the equivalent of Jake's in manipulation and perfect innocence.)

"Well, you'll have to ask Jake that."

Amelia turns to Jake, looking up shyly through her eyelashes (so reminiscent of her mother) and asks quietly, "Cuddle, Jake?"

He laughs happily in surprise and plucks her from Bella's arms. Bella follows them into the living room and listens to Amelia persuading Jake to play Barbie and dress up and every other game she can think of. Jake looks faintly horrified, hiding it well behind his chipper voice and easy smile, but when he looks over at Bella and mouths _help!_ she laughs and they spend the rest of the evening playing Barbies.


	7. Between the Past and the Present

Part Seven

_Finding That State Between the Past and the Present_

_---_

_There's some words I never told you,_

_The sound rings out like the truth_

…_I see color, _

_I see the maroon in the blood of this life..._

_That's ours_

_-'Afterglow', Vanessa Carlton._

_---_

Already there are small signs of Jake in her house – the half empty milk jug, a battered motorsport magazine tossed on the coffee table, the toilet seat left up (she never figured he'd be such a cliché) and the fact that her bed hasn't been made in three days. But then there's her smile (it doesn't wilt at the edges anymore), the fresh daisies always greeting her as she walks bleary eyed into the kitchen every morning and that Amelia, once a quiet child, now speaks confidently and happily with most everyone. But especially Jake. _He's my favourite _she whispered to Bella one night, a small hand covering her mouth as if telling Bella in the strictest confidence, before falling asleep.

Jacob had always been a part of her; it's just that now she could feel that without falling apart in guilt or sorrow.

---

"Only a day left!" Amelia squealed happily into Jake's face. Bella rolled her eyes and watched the routine that had developed over the past two weeks. Jake was holding a barely contained Amelia as she leaned precariously over to the calendar on the fridge, a large red crayon in her hand. With an exuberant flourish, Amelia crossed out the last day.

"Mama! I'm going to be a big girl tomorrow!"

Jake, his ears still probably ringing from Amelia's excitement, turned to smile expectantly at Bella.

"I know, sweetie. When did you get so big?"

Amelia pondered this for a moment before saying decidedly, "since tomorrow."

Jake and Bella laughed and Amelia looked bemusedly between the two of them before squirming and asking Jake to put her down. Once she skipped off to her bedroom, Jake pulled Bella into him, fingers linked through her belt loops and pressed a smile against her lips.

"She's so excited," he murmured.

"Really? Never would've noticed," Bella quipped. With a sigh and thinking of how much she still needed to organise for Amelia's birthday lunch the next day, she released Jake with two quick kisses to his mouth.

"Need some help?"

Bella turned a frank gaze on him, one eyebrow raised.

"I've seen your idea of cooking, Jake. And despite what you think, charred black is not the new medium rare."

"Sure sure," he shrugs before lithely hoisting himself onto one of the kitchen benches.

For the next two hours Jake proves that between dipping his finger into every dish, distracting her to the extent that she burns the cake and insisting that the potato salad needs tomato sauce (it's a necessity, he argues) so that, despite Bella loving him, there is only so much she can take. So she shoos (chases) him out of the kitchen with a wack to the rump with her tea towel (and a devilish grin from Jake that tells her she's going to pay for that later) before finally setting out to clear the disaster zone that is – was – her kitchen.

Upon completion, she collapses against the kitchen sink with a weary but deliriously happy smile and silently labelling Jake a huge pain in the arse. But he's _her _pain in the arse and she realises she wouldn't have it any other way.

---

The next morning she's woken up by a flushed cheeked Amelia who she realises, with a sigh of resignation, already has cupcake smeared on her face. Amelia quickly smacks a kiss on Bella's cheek before bouncing excitedly on the bed, all the while squealing ecstatically. Bella faintly hears the front door open and Jake call out. A few minutes later he's framed in the doorway, with a look of conflict upon his face. Before she can even begin to ask he's launched his huge frame onto her bed and is squealing (although in a far lower tone capable of being heard by creatures other than dogs and bats) along with Amelia. He's hoisted Amelia into his arms and she's giggling so much that Bella's worried that she can't breathe, before she buries her head under the sanctuary of her pillow.

Everything's deceptively still and quiet for a moment and Bella warily peeks out from under her pillow, only to be tickled mercilessly by both of them. _Traitor,_ she thinks at Amelia. Jake's totally bought her over.

Eventually they have mercy on her and collapse exhausted and giggling to themselves. Amelia snuggles into the crook of Bella's neck and Jake rests his cheek against Bella's stomach. It growls and he laughs exuberantly.

"Let's go get your Mama some breakfast, big girl," he says before cradling her into his arms. Bella can hear them chattering quietly down the stairs.

She sighs, content, before hauling herself out of bed and into the day.

---

The party is all pink balloons and princess crowns. Amelia even charms one onto a resigned and blushing Sam Uley Junior, who promptly wrestles his older brother to the ground at the incessant teasing. Amelia is truly the darling of the ball, bestowing kisses and smiles to every one there. Even Leah seems happy in a particularly floral and out of character dress. Jake comments on this, but Bella thinks it has more to do with the fact that Brady's cousin from out of town - who's spent most of the lunch staring at her with a mixture of trepidation and awe-has finally (and shyly) offered her a drink and a smile.

One by one the kids begin to tire, snuggling into parents laps or onto each other's shoulders. Amelia yawns decadently as she snacks on what Bella suspects is her hundredth cupcake before she settles onto the couch next to Sam Junior, promptly falling asleep with her mouth half full. The adults mingle for another half hour, the absence of the children loosening tongues and inspiring the swapping of tales. Gradually they drift away until only Jake, Billy, Charlie and Bella are left. Bella and Jake leave the two older men by the television and watching over Amelia as she snores softly next to Charlie.

They reach the bottom of the stairs and Bella leans her head tiredly against his chest, seeking the comfort of his heart beat against her cheek. He sighs happily and she feels his lips against her forehead and the strong comfort of his arms surround her.

"We survived," he chuckles and she joins in quietly.

"She loved it," Bella smiles.

"Of course she did. There were cupcakes and fairy wings and pink."

"Princess crowns, Jake, not fairy wings," Bella imitates in Amelia's exasperated tone.

Jake kisses her nose adoringly and sweeps her princess style into his arms.

"Well, princess, time for bed?" he says with a wicked angle to his brow.

Bella eyes him shrewdly, "I have a feeling you're the villain rather than the prince."

"Princes are overrated," Jake replies easily.

"Crap, hang on, can we detour to the kitchen?" Bella asks quickly.

"What am I? Your steed?"

Bella motions a whipping action and whistles through her teeth.

Jake sighs heavily and treads to the kitchen. When he reaches the table, Bella leans and snatches the pile of letters that came that morning when she was too busy to open them.

"Alright, you may take me to bed now," she mocks imperiously, fluttering a hand at him.

He growls at her and throws her suddenly over his shoulder, ignoring her squeaks of indignation as he stomps up the stairs.

He tosses her on the bed and she mutters something along the lines of _caveman _before he smothers her with small, peppered kisses. Soon they're both laughing and Bella settles into her usual place in the crook of his arm while she sifts half heartedly through a stack of mostly bills and advertisements.

Two from the bottom Jake watches her face smooth, her hand frozen halfway through the motion of flipping the envelope to tear it open.

"Bells?"

Nothing.

"Bells," he says louder, touching her shoulder. She startles and looks at him before returning to the letter.

"It's from them," she says quietly, running her fingers over the neat penmanship on the cover.

"Who?" he asks, even though he knows the answer. It swirls thick and sickening in his gut. He needs to hear her say it. To know.

"The Cullens," she says, slightly sadly but he's relieved because she _said it, _she said their names and not in a reverent way, just in a regretful but also happy way.

She carefully tears the envelope and retrieves the colourful card from within. It's an arrangement of polka dots and stripes and very obviously and painstakingly put together.

"Alice," Bella breathes, opening the card and smiling as she reads the small note.

_A Birthday Wish for Amelia Swan._

_Have a lovely day and enjoy your presents._

_We wish you all the love in the world._

Jake registers her tears before she does and the last thing she says before she falls asleep is,

"It was his handwriting, Jake."

But she was smiling when she said it. And so he smiles, too.

---


	8. The Heartbreak of an Enigma

Part Eight

_The Heartbreak of an Enigma_

_---_

_There's some things we don't talk about…rather do without…just hold the smile_

'_Unsaid', The Fray_

_---_

It had been the same every anniversary of Amelia's life. A brightly coloured card with the same beautiful but antiquated flourish of her name. There was never a mention of the sender, just an anonymous feeling of love she felt every time her mother quietly handed her the envelope with a sheen to her eyes and the subtle curve of her mouth. When the twins were born Amelia felt a strange smugness at the simple, still beautiful but not personal, inscription they received. It was still anonymous, still in the same beautiful script, but it didn't have that intimacy that hers did. She loved the twins, adored their innocence and detested their snotty noses and their coveting of her mother and Jake's attention – he was her best friend, after all – but revelled in the fact that this stranger, strangers, treasured her and marked her as unique and separate. The twins had each other and the strange bond that had them finishing each other's sentences and had Chris crying when Sarah broke her arm ice skating (some three miles away) and this bond made her feel distant - not lonely - just separate. Like she was different to them. She figured the age difference of almost eleven years played a part in this, but also the fact that, somewhere, these strangers cared for her.

Amelia wants to know who they are, but she knows her mother would never tell. And she would never ask. All she knows is that Jake would look significantly at her mother every time one arrived and she would look back, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth and catching his hands and his resulting smile.

It is the secret Amelia always wanted to know and she knows she will probably never find out.

---

An inconsolable Amelia comes home one night, her quiet despair hauntingly similar to Bella's own – a fact that made Jacob's blood run cold. Not that he points out the similarity to Bella. Not that he needs to. Bella rests a palm against his cheek, a grim understanding set into the lines of her forehead before she pushes the door to eighteen year old Amelia's bedroom open and disappears inside. Jacob slumps down the door thumping his head lightly against the wood as he tunes out the hum of his girls' whispers from within. A tired, muss haired Chris asks grumpily about the racket, but upon seeing his father's face silently pads back into his room. Jacob's too weary, too tightly wound, to even call him back. He can hear Chris talking quietly to Sarah and smiles weakly when her tiny face, button nose and almond eyes, peeks out at him in quiet inquiry.

"I'm okay, honey. Go to bed. Amelia's just a little bit upset."

And in the divine innocent belief of children Sarah asks, "Do you think she'd feel better if I gave her Mr Arnold?" She holds out the ragged eared teddy bear and Jacob smiles again.

"That's nice, honey, but I think she'll be... " he pauses and hates it, "Off to bed, okay?"

He watches her with watery eyes as she trips over the rug with dragging feet and into Chris's room. It's just him, the ticking of the hallway clock and the quiet murmurs from behind the door but then he hears them. He almost cries in conflicted relief when he hears Amelia's loud sobs because it meant that she was feeling it – feeling it as Bella hadn't let herself all those years ago. It also meant she was capable of moving on.

---

Bella strokes her baby's – she'll always be her baby, even when she's thirty three – hair and hums the lullaby that always broke her heart and that had calmed Amelia when she was little. It's Edward's lullaby – or hers – and it stops Amelia's tears so that she could choke out the disjointed tale of her heart break, a result of the Spanish exchange student who was returning home the next day.

"He said it was better this way. That long distance made it too hard and that it wasn't fair to either of us. And I didn't want to believe him at first but then I understood. I didn't want to, but I did."

Bella pauses, momentarily drawn into past memories and draws strength and wisdom from that when she resurfaces, "I know it's horrible and hurts and you're angry right now, but you're both right. You'll always have those memories – good and bad – but one day you'll look back on them, sweetie, and you'll see the good in all of them. The life in all of them. You'll remember love and, really, that's all anyone can ever ask for."

Bella doesn't even notice the trails of moisture that leak steadily and subtly from the corners of her eyes, until Amelia touches her cheek and murmurs a quiet _Mama._

Bella tells her then. Everything. About a young girl who fell in love and gained the love of two of the brightest and purest souls in the world. About finding herself upon losing forever and her best friend. Through it all Amelia is silent, eyes wide and sad. She knows of wolves – she'd grown up on the backs of them, playing and learning with them - and treaties, even of vampires though she's never met one. They were always more of a myth and fascinating (terrifying) possibility, something real but not tangible. Until now.

She looks in sad understanding at her mother, with the memories that cause her to seem older when you look into her eyes and despite her still youthful face. She finds she doesn't even need to contemplate whether she's shocked, because really what difference is there between loving a vampire or a wolf or a mortal? None, she decides. _Absolutely none at all, _she thinks as she looks at her mother who's smiling quietly, a comforting enigma. Amelia's always felt loved by her mother, treasured and adored, but despite knowing her mother's favourite colour (blue) and how her nose crinkles when she's amused and the twist of her mouth when she's disappointed, she knows nothing of her past. Nothing of the girl she was. Amelia realises this makes her sad, makes her thirsty with a need to know more about this Bella and how she herself might be similar, but again that enigma of her mother and the subtle curve of her mouth that gives nothing away, no secrets and no stories, causes her to repress this desire.

Because she knows her mother and her are similar in that, if nothing else, they are stubborn and private people who guard their heart only too well.

---

It's only when Amelia is between that state of awareness and sleep that she answers the question she'd been seeking all those years.

She remembers her mother's face as she hands her the birthday envelope every year and places it next to the memory of her mother only hours earlier as she spoke of an immortal love that was doomed from the beginning.

She knows who sent the card.

Edward.

Amelia cries herself quietly to sleep even though she doesn't quite know what she's crying for.

Or who.

----

Bella closes the door to Amelia's room with a hollow click. Jacob looks up at her warily, his brow furrowed and she smoothes it, a natural action without thought, before kneeling and cradling his head to hers.

"You told her," he states calmly, his voice gritty with disuse and strained with concern.

Bella nods, weary with the exhaustion of her emotion.

"I think she understands now, or is at least closer to understanding, someday."

"Understanding?"

"That she'll always love him. That the girl she is now will always love him as she is now. Frozen and passionate in time. But one day she'll grow out of him and that future her will find someone else. Love someone else. The someone she was always meant to love. And all the heartache will be nothing but a memory. And then she will know what it is to truly love."

Jacob stares at her now. The faint lines that speak of her past tragedy and also the laughter that flickers present throughout the gloom. He studies the face he has loved for such a very long time and sees it all. Everything. And he silently thanks Edward for loving her (doesn't blame him at all or withhold any bitterness), just a deep, resounding sadness because he knows what it is to lose her (black, charred fragments of your soul that keep replaying the same pictures over and over) and is just so _thankful._

"Thank you," he breathes shakily.

She gives him a soft, questioning raise of her brow.

"For loving me enough to come back."

She stares at him, searching the planes of his face, unwavering in her devotion to every facet, every expression, and says:

"I thought I'd lost my heart, but then I realised that I'd given it to you years ago and just didn't realise it. Living without my heart was no life at all. And so I came back."

The atmosphere is heavy in the aftermath of Amelia's heartache, until she sees a faint glimmer of mischief in Jake's eyes. She grins in cohort with his and she's seventeen years old again.

"So, about this heart…can I keep it?"

She laughs, slightly breathlessly, but sincerely none the less.

"It's forever yours."

And he finally realises – with a joy, an awe, a God damn _epiphany _(he figures Bella's speech has finally rubbed off on him)- that it really is.

Bella Swan's heart belongs to him.

And all he can think is:

_Finally. _


	9. Wishing I Had Let You Sign

Part Nine

Wishing I had Let You Sign

---

'_You said that I will be okay and in your name I find meaning, but I'm barely holding onto you.'_

'Broken', Lifehouse.

---

Their life passes in measures of laughter and tears and birthdays and weddings and grandchildren. At Amelia's wedding to Mark – a nice boy she met at the museum with a quiet temperament and a quick wit – Jacob walks her down the aisle and everyone laughs at his reluctant expression (and tears) as he gives her away. Next is Sarah, and Jake is equally as resigned as he passes her off to a boy who is a, quote, 'long haired goon on a bike.' Bella laughed uncontrollably when she first heard that and how Sarah stomped into the other room, retrieving the photo of a twenty three year old Jake, his grin all teeth, and Bella hiding her face behind his shoulder. Jake faltered, mumbling something about it being 'completely different', before giving his permission. Sarah just rolled her eyes in tandem with Bella's before saying 'lucky he gave us his blessing and all, considering I've already bought a dress.' Jake sulked for a week after that. Something about a 'betrayal of trust.' The next day Bella overheard Jake hurriedly interrogating Chris about his girlfriend and Chris exasperatedly assuring him that there were no definite plans for a wedding soon. Bella almost laughed at the conflict on Jake's face, his desire for his son's happiness warring with the desire for his own peaceful state of mind.

And life went on.

And, even when she hated it, she appreciated every second of it.

---

More and more lines mark her face, gentle hollows and paths that tell the story of her life. Bella smiles at the mirror as she remembers her distraught, paranoid fear of getting older at age eighteen. She remembers the way Charlie would pluck a hair from her head and saunter casually past before laughing as she dashed to the nearest reflective surface. Now she appreciates these lines as a sign that she's lived, really lived. That she's human.

Because she can see her story in her face. See that line Jake always smooths between her eyes, see how the lines are deeper on the right corner of her mouth and above her right brow. She can see Edward and she can see Thomas. She'll always see Jacob. She can see Amelia and Sarah and Chris. She sees it all and she smiles.

She smiles because she's _lived. _

It's the one thing she can do for Edward. The one thing she has left to give him. The one thing she was always destined to give him, in one form or another.

Her life.

---

When they told her that her heart was dying, she laughed. Because, really, of all the things to kill her, of all of her organs, her heart should be the strongest. It had been cared for. Coveted by Edward, lended to Thomas and, finally, belonged with Jake. _Oh, Jake. _But then her laughter quiets because, maybe, her heart's just tired. Maybe a heart just can't love two people so intensely, so fully, without giving out.

And loved she has. Recklessly, desperately, hopefully. Happily, peacefully and eternally. But she doesn't regret one single second of it. How could she?

Because she was loved back. And to Bella, that was all she ever really wanted from life.

To be _loved._

---

The day Bella Swan dies, a tall man walks the coastline of La Push. His face is lined with grief, the grace of his walk, only more pronounced with age, is heavy, as if it sees no point in movement. In life.

Jake knew this day would come. He'd always selfishly hoped to go first. Never told her, but always hoped. Because he knew there was nothing for him if he couldn't follow her. Sure, there were memories. But he didn't want them without her. They _hurt _without her.

He hears people pass him, hears their life, and turns his face away. He sits dazedly on the old driftwood stump staring at the birds that careen in the swift breeze, the sounds of life around him, and wonders how everything can just keep going, keep moving, because _don't they know that the love of his life is dead? _

And it hurts. Hurts worse than when she left him, because at least she was happy somewhere. At least the possibility of her was alive. And, for a fleeting moment, he wishes he'd been selfless. Wishes he'd let her go and stopped fighting for her. Wishes Edward had won, and she had embraced the night. Because at least a form of her would be here. At least he could see her face, talk to her. Anything. Anything of her.

She's gone and it feels so wrong for him to be breathing. Surely, he should be dead, too.

Surely, life should stop right here.

But life doesn't stop for death, he realises. Not even when you wish with all your heart that it would.


	10. Life in Greyscale

Chapter 10

Life in Greyscale

_I live beneath your sky_

_With tainted eyes_

_I've made my mind_

_To live until I die_

_-Until I Die, Brandi Carlile_

In one of the rare moments of peace that echoed against the desolate emptiness of the grief he could never distract himself from, he remembers a conversation he'd never spoken of. A conversation he'd hidden and held next to his heart, somewhere between the fourth and fifth rib. It was always in the time before he turned off his bedside lamp that he had this moment of peace. It had been a clear, fine morning. Just like every other day, he'd rolled from the left side of the bed, smiling at the effort needed to untangle himself from the soft lines of Bella's limbs and padded into the diffused, half light of the kitchen. Vapours of cold air marked his breath as he unconsciously placed the kettle to boil on the rear element- the only one that worked. He remembered thinking he'd need to buy a new stove – he'd bring it home while Bella was out and wrap it in red ribbon. She'd like that- as he stretched his arms above his head. It was mid-stretch, the weary strain of his shoulder making him feel old, that he smelled that infusion of frigid sweetness, like funeral flowers, his body shuddering into spirals of heat that rippled in seismic shifts across his shoulders and resulted in the shattering of the glass of water in his hand.

It was all instinct, then, the stretch of his tendons, elongation of his limbs into a creature of compulsion. Right there in the kitchen amongst unwashed dishes and yellow cupboards, he trembled, before shouldering himself out the front door and into the cold light of the day.

He paced, uncertain how to proceed. Wake Bella and Amelia and run? Or get rid of the problem now?

Plan B won out, his breath steadying with the confidence of determination and purpose. He had to keep them safe.

The smell grew stronger as he paced the perimeter, towards the back of the house. His muscles tightened, coiled into tight purpose, ready for a fight.

A movement in the peripheral, a flash of white, and he spun wildly only to stop in surprise.

"Good morning, Jacob Black," came the compelling calm of his voice.

A jolt of true fear, not adrenalin, not the fear that comes from the promise of a fight, but true fear, ran through him. Fear of loss. He was back. He was here for Bella.

Edward shook his head minutely, pain and longing curiously amalgamating into an expression that sent pity through Jacob's being. He looked like a man who had a wish that he knew would never come true, would never survive, but held onto passionately – desperately- and now that it was gone, could no longer could see the colours of life. Just the grey, consuming planes of grief, as far as he could see. An eternity.

It was soon replaced by an emotionless mask. Tone severe and cutting in its lack of emotion, Edward spoke.

"I'm not here to fight. I'm not here to forgive or beg or anything other than to get a promise from you."

Jacob nodded, before shifting back into his human form. He indicated for Edward to wait, before jogging into the house and stepping into a pair of jeans and shrugging a shirt over his head.

Edward had not moved, more angled and inhumanly motionless than Jacob had ever seen him. Edward narrowed his black eyes and Jake took his chance to speak.

"What kind of promise?"

He didn't mean to sound challenging or distrustful. It was more a remnant of the past that gave the colour of irritation to his words, rather than a real feeling of dislike. Because he actually didn't mind Edward now that he had Bella. He liked to think that he'd gained a sort of understanding for the man. Vampire. Whatever.

"Take care of her. Cherish her. She deserves everything and more when it comes to this life."

Jake nodded, sincerely, and echoed his affirmation in his mind.

"Love her as I do. Promise me."

And he would, with Edward's passion, intensity and hopeless devotion, but he wouldn't in that he would love her as herself, wouldn't see her only as a frail mortal.

Because he thinks this was Edward's problem all along: he loved her as he saw her and not as who she was.

A girl desperately in love and just wanting a boy who could love her equally as desperately. Not more, not less.

Just equal.

Jake shakes the memory from himself, slowly coming into recognition of the burnished orange walls around him (Bella wanted a sunset in her room) and shakes harder as if to dislodge it from his very skin, a physical weight heavy upon his mind. A different kind of weight to the consistency of his grief. He knows he kept his promise to Edward. That Bella was happy and loved and lived all that she could. So why this unfamiliar, nagging weight? He attempts to feebly search harder for the reason. He likes knowing how things work, it relieves his fear, calms him in moments of panic. Like with Bella. Like with Bella's sickness. Every trial was dissected, he would read and study every part of her treatment until the choked, suffocated feeling left the back of his throat and the pit of his stomach. Or at least dulled. But he's too tired now. Too tired of saying _I'm fine. _Too tired of seeing Bella's smile in his dreams, reaching out and waking up in an empty bed with empty hands and an empty soul and too much time. He's a firm believer in life, in pushing forwards through the bad times and reaching that relief at the end. But this is too much. He's _tired. _He just wants her back. He reaches over to the flickering, artificial strain of the bedside lamp and turns it off. He lays there in the darkness, watching as the imprint of the light fades from behind his closed eyelids. Until all that was left was her smile.

Amelia found it easy to distract herself in the beginning; between running the kids around – choir practise, piano lessons (because Bella insisted), ballet and baseball – and her irregular shifts at the nursing home, she could barely find time to breathe. But now she's home, the kids at school and Mark at work (he only left after she practically pushed him out the door, insisting for the hundredth time that she was _fine) _and has nothing to distract her from the fact that her mother is dead. She sits dazedly on the back porch, staring at the cars that pass every ten minutes and the sounds of life around her and wonders how everything can just keep going, keep moving, because _don't they know that her Mama is dead?_

She's angry at herself and her current time at home (three weeks leave) that's a result of her breakdown at work. What was intended to be a day off for the funeral turned into three weeks. She'd been playing chess with Mrs Reynolds – a woman with a heart of gold, a filthy mouth and Alzheimer's – and upon looking at the deep wrinkles in her face, couldn't stop crying because her mother would never get to have those wrinkles (if only Amelia knew the anxiety Bella had at age seventeen about impending wrinkles, it may have spared Amelia this small grievance) and how unfair death was.

It seems ironic to Amelia that a girl once destined to live forever, who was coveted by creatures of the night and faced nightmares with a stubborn countenance, is now dead from something as ordinary, as _human, _as cancer.

She checks in on Jake every few days under the pretense of bringing dinner, but they both know her real intentions. That she's worried about him.

He goes for a lot of long drives; where, she doesn't know. All she knows is that he comes back calmer, an aura of peaceful acceptance surrounding him as well as the scent of an ocean breeze.

She's heard him talking to Bella before. Hushed murmurings about herself and Sarah and Chris and the neighbour down the road whose dog chased the post man up the tree. Amelia stood in the dark hallway and listened with a heavy heart as Jake asked her questions – _have you found my mum yet, Bells? She'll be so thrilled to see you again. I'll bet it's real nice up there. All those fluffy clouds and icecream (strawberry in your case) and endless Jane Austen novels to read. Hell, maybe you've even talked to the woman yourself! _His chuckles trailed off into a heavy sigh before he spoke again,

"I'm trying, Bells. Really. It's just hard. I keep expecting to see you walk in the door and tell me to back away from the stove every time I go to make breakfast. It's wrong, Bells. You should be here. God, I miss you."

Amelia couldn't stand to hear anymore. She left Jake hunched over the stove – a hopeless expectation obvious in the tilt of his head towards the door – and stole down the corridor and into the fresh air outside.


	11. To Keep All This But A Memory

Thank you to you all. Thank you for your support, kind hearts and lovely words.

This chapter is for you.

I hope you enjoyed the ride.

---

Part Ten

_To Keep All of This as a Memory_

_---_

_I'll be seeing you in every lovely summer's day._

_- 'I'll Be Seeing You', Fain/Kahal._

_---_

Amelia's glad she didn't bring the children to the service, or Mark, because she needs this solitude, this quiet, to consider everything she knows and everything that's happened. The service is simple and long, but she tunes out the clergy man and thinks about her mother. Amelia thinks of her beautiful, stubborn mother and how the first anyone knew of her sickness was only after Amelia's son, Zach, ran into the house screaming that Nana wasn't breathing. It was only when Amelia noticed Bella's lack of surprise at the diagnosis of her heart failure and the tilt of her mouth that told Amelia she'd been hiding it from them. Including Jake. Amelia thought that she might never breathe properly again and Jake had disappeared into a dark echo of himself – one devoid of laughter and happiness- for a whole week before her mother told him to man up, stop crying and buy her some chocolate. After that there were endless hospital visits and false hope, but above all, Amelia remembers the strength of her mother's love and determination. For Jake and Sarah and Chris and for herself. Amelia laughs out loud, tears wetting her eyelids and grips the hands of her siblings, loving that Sarah didn't even have to ask, just instinctively knew, what she was thinking and smiled back. And that Chris still rolled his eyes at her, his downturned mouth struggling to remain so, despite the moisture that gathered there. She thinks she hears a heavy, subdued chuckle from the back row, but drifts back into her own thoughts for the remainder of the service.

She's speaking to old Mrs Jones, their long time neighbour, when she sees an ethereal bronze haired man that reminds her of the romantic lines of those in text books she studied years ago for classical art. The dark shadows of his face – and she suspects his mind and heart – cause her to fumble a little in approaching him. That and the way he's bent as if weighed down by a grief so strong he can't sit upright. She has a strong feeling she knows who this is and her heart hurts a little for the stranger she's been secretly curious about for a long time.

He doesn't move from his vulnerable position as she approaches – despite that if her suspicions are correct he would have read the tenor of her intentions – and she reaches out a tentative hand to rest lightly on his shoulder.

"Edward?"

The young man seems to reluctantly unfurl himself with a grace that is both eerily beautiful and makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She takes a half step back when his black gaze holds hers steadily, but refuses to avert her eyes. Instinct screams at her to run, but compassion begs her to stay because here in front of her she can see all of the world's suffering in one man's eyes. And it makes her want to look away. She didn't even see this in Jacob's eyes, only a deep sadness and reluctant acceptance because they had made their peace with her death early. Mama had made them. She didn't want her death, or the disease that claimed her, to cast a shadow over their lives. She wanted them to live.

This man, more sorrow and despair than anything else, does not have that luxury. Amelia wonders quietly if Edward is even really there as he stares vacantly at her.

"Are you okay?" she asks, feeling that the question is completely inadequate and foolish.

A flicker of recognition flares in his eyes before it cools into an ancient grief, "No, but it is nice to see you again, Amelia."

"Again?"

He smiles ruefully, secretly, and it reminds Amelia strongly of her mother. Brief wistfulness, still tainted strongly by pain, crosses Edward's face as this thought crosses her mind.

"You are just like…your mother," his voice, she recognises distantly, is like a church organ both lulling and rich, but ominous in its tone.

She sees the danger of this man but, to her, any man who loved her mother and who her mother loved as she did Edward must have an incredible heart. Must have a soul.

Edward smiles another twilight smile, nods his head and turns to walk away.

Amelia, desperate to hold onto this last piece of her mother's past, calls out quickly,

"She always loved you."

Edward looks at her, the sculpted gravity of his face softens, and he breathes a quiet _thank you _before walking to a large group of people, dressed all in black save the small, delicate girl in white. A classic beauty smiles anxiously at her, a maternal smile that makes Amelia aches for her mother even more. The man next to her touches Edward's cheek and Amelia sees Edward's composure break, the older man catching him as he falls. Amelia stares at them, these strange, beautiful people. None of them are crying and yet she feels their grief just as strong as she feels her own. Their gazes follow her as she walks back to where her father and Jacob are accepting condolences.

Jake touches her cheek as she reaches them and her father gives her an awkward shoulder squeeze – in truth, Jacob was far closer to her than her own father – and she closes her eyes. She can almost feel her mother there, in the quiet, in fact she felt her most strongly in witnessing Edward's smile and in Jacob's warmth.

When she opens her eyes, she is alone. She looks across the dappled light of the chapel and sees three figures, one lithe and grave, the other tall and patient, the third perfectly average, confused, and looking down at his shoes.

She grants them privacy but can't help overhearing – her curiosity rejoices in subdued victory – their conversation.

There's a peaceful understanding that seems to exist between the three men and, despite the grief of each, all are able to appreciate and understand the others' love for the woman whose life they are here to remember.

She sees her father introduce himself to Edward and Jacob nod in greeting. Edward looks at Thomas with significant interest, searching his face, for what, she doesn't know. He then locks hands with Jacob and both hold each other's gaze, seeming to convey something profound and essential to both of them. Amelia can practically see the tension between them, but also the respect. She smiles, beams really, and presses her hand to the banister of the church pew before walking into the sunlight.

Because at the meeting of her mother's three loves, she thinks she just may have heard her mother's jubilant laugh.

_**---**_

_**The End**_

_**---**_

_Somewhere Between_


End file.
